This is a redo of an older poem which I have changed into a haibun. My father was an honorable man who had been popular and smart, a valedictorian in high school. My mom met him in the Navy in California. He went away to fight in Korea. At this time, his schizophrenia came out, and he returned to my mother a different person. In those days, women like my mom were more likely to stay with their husbands through good and bad, but after having three daughters with him and one on the way, she realized she could not continue living with his mental illness. She divorced him and moved back to Iowa, where I grew up.
I didn't get to know my dad very well. The pills he later took made him sleep a lot. When he died six years ago, he had outlived his nine siblings. I went to say goodbye before he died and it was like conversing with the shell of a man. I don't know how his fourth and final wife could bear living with him, but I am so grateful she was there with him for the last 35 years of his life. I know my dad loved me, and I am eager to see him in the next life, where I know his mental health has been restored.